Resurgent ethno-nationalism and the renewed demand for Biafra in south-east Nigeria

The renewed demand for Biafra by Igbo people is a rejection of their post-war socio-political and economic condition in Nigeria. Through the processing of primary data, the paper examines this reinvention of Igbo nationalism. It looks at its linkage with the 1999 democratic transition in Nigeria, its implications and management by the government. The paper concludes that the renewed demand for Biafra is caused by perception of inequities and injustice in the distribution of power and resources among the Igbo. Hence a deliberate effort to correct these social problems can assuage ethnic tensions and presumption of political violence in Nigeria.     

社会过程是必然性与偶然性的统一

社会过程是必然性与偶然性的统一。社会历史过程中的偶然性与必然性的相互关系为经济落后国家提供了超越资本主义阶段的可能性,中国建成社会主义有其有利的经济、政治、思想文化和国际条件。     

Risk,Media, and Stigma at Rocky Flats

Public responses to nuclear technologies are often strongly negative. Events, such as accidents or evidence of unsafe conditions at nuclear facilities, receive extensive and dramatic coverage by the news media. These news stories affect public perceptions of nuclear risks and the geographic areas near nuclear facilities. One result of these perceptions, avoidance behavior, is a form of technological stigma that leads to losses in property values near nuclear facilities. The social amplification of risk is a conceptual framework that attempts to explain how stigma is created through media transmission of information about hazardous places and public perceptions and decisions. This paper examines stigma associated with the U.S. Department of Energy's Rocky Flats facility, a major production plant in the nation's nuclear weapons complex, located near Denver, Colorado. This study, based upon newspaper analyses and a survey of Denver area residents, finds that the social amplification theory provides a reasonable framework for understanding the events and public responses that took place in regard to Rocky Flats during a 6-year period, beginning with an FBI raid of the facility in 1989.     

Mapping movement landscapes in South Africa

ABSTRACT

The concept of a movement landscape is used to analyse continuities and changes in popular mobilization since the end of formal apartheid. Focusing on four different episodes of protest since 1997, the article examines their relationship to the ANC movement and traditions, and their organizational forms. It finds a general theme of fluid and ephemeral organization, and a distrust of formal hierarchal organization, that is relatively new in South Africa. The Marikana strikes produced the most far-reaching organizational realignments, while the student struggles generated the most innovative re-imaginings of political forms and discourses. It concludes that although there have been critiques of and challenges to the ANC tradition, and experiments with new forms of organizing, they have not produced alternatives that have lasted or dislodged the dominant approaches defined and popularized by the ANC movement.     

将生命还给社会:传记法作为一种总体叙事方式

在田野民族志和历史编纂学中，传记法是一种重要的叙事方式。本文从分析林耀华的作品入手，将其置于20世纪20年代以来的社会学和人类学思想脉络中，并在此基础上探讨传记法在中国历史和社会研究中的潜力与可能性。本文将谱系法、个人生命史和社会生命论归纳为“传记法三角”。在（扩展）谱系法和社会结构论的基础上，生命传记法可以呈现一个或多个人的生命历史，作为大历史中的片段。不过，现象学路径有其自身的限度，不能离开对中央政权本身和总体结构的考察。在“时势”和“社会结构”的变迁过程中呈现生命传记，才不会只是个体的故事，而有希望成为一种对中国“总体”社会生活的有力叙事方式。     

Integrating self-care into clinical practice with trauma clients

ABSTRACT

Self-care is recognized as an important aspect of social work practice. Beginning in educational settings, developing social workers are encouraged to learn about and practice self-care. However, self-care is typically promoted through strategies and approaches outside of the practice context. Social workers are oftentimes encouraged to use individualized self-care plans, which often feature a variety of relaxation and secondary techniques; focus on self-awareness and self-reflection; and have proper use of supervision. Although these strategies are invaluable, they do little to directly benefit the social worker during direct practice or while in session with a client which is a time period when clinicians are particularly vulnerable to distress or burnout. The importance of real-time self-care strategies is particularly critical for clinicians, especially those who engage in trauma work, given the sensitivity of topics that clients may have endured or benefit from assistance in processing. Further, little information has been published on the use of self-care techniques during a session with a client or in a clinical context. The purpose of the present paper is to discuss self-care strategies that can be useful both outside of and within a clinical setting and present a model of such strategies that focus on integrating self-care in clinical practice particularly for those engaging in trauma work. The paper will conclude by discussing the relevancy of the developed model in practice.     

The disaster relief and social work after the Wenchuan earthquake in Mainland China

ABSTRACT

This paper mainly focuses on the development of disaster social work in Mainland China and the intervention of social work in disaster relief. Before the Wenchuan earthquake and in the initial stage of post-earthquake, disaster social work was mainly based on individual psychotherapy; from the earthquake to the year of 2012 in which post-earthquake recovery and reconstruction was completed, the disaster relief began to emphasise community building and integration, while the basic framework for disaster social work was also established. Social workers begin to explore the new mode of developmental and localised disaster social work. By combining with the practical experiences from disaster social work, this paper tries to highlight the dilemmas confronting disaster relief in Mainland China and put forward some corresponding countermeasures and suggestions, which could improve the future disaster relief system in Mainland China.     

Climate justice and sustained transnational mobilization

ABSTRACT

Samir Amin’s final essay called for the creation of a new international organization of progressive social forces. Here I review evidence from twenty-first century transnational movements germane for understanding the likelihood of the emergence of such an international organization and the issues and sectors most likely to facilitate coalitional unity. More specifically, the ecological crises identified by Amin in the form of global warming and climate change have created an unprecedented global environmental threat capable of unifying diverse social strata across the planet. The climate justice movement has already established a global infrastructure and template to coordinate a new international organization for confronting neoliberal forms of globalization. Pre-existing movement organizing around environmental racism, climate justice in the global South, and recent intersectional mobilizations serve as promising models for building an enduring international organization that will represent subaltern groups and have a substantial impact on world politics.